Post Mortem: January 2, 2011 - January 8, 2011

Gerry Rafferty, a Scottish singer-songwriter who, as a member of the '70s band Stealers Wheel, co-wrote the hit song "Stuck in the Middle With You," died Jan. 4 at the age of 63. Rafferty retired from the limelight many years ago and had a drinking problem, but his two big...

In today's paper, I wrote about Don Tyson, an aw-shucks Arkansas farmhand who turned his father's single-truck poultry-hauling business into a worldwide protein empire: Tyson Foods Inc. For his poultry supremacy, Mr. Tyson earned the title of America's "Chicken King." During my research, I came across some rather interesting tidbits...

Vang Pao, who led a secret CIA sponsored insurgency in Laos during the Vietnam war, has died age 81 in California. Gen. Pao was a longtime resident of the Fresno area of California, where he was considered the de facto leader of the Hmong people who lived there. As a...

Donald Tyson, who built his family's business into a poultry-producing behemoth, has died. Besides producing meat for TV dinners and McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, Tyson Foods was known in Washington for giving illegal gifts to Clinton-era agriculture secretary Mike Espy. In 1997, the company was fined $4 million after pleading guilty...

What happens when that tweet from late last night becomes your very last? What if that awkward Facebook status update -- such as admitting that Glee's rendition of "Lucky," like, totally melts your heart -- is your final shout out to the world? A couple of stories within the past...

Dick King-Smith, a British farmer-turned-writer whose beloved children's book "The Sheep-Pig" -- better known in the U.S. as "Babe: The Gallant Pig" -- was later turned into a popular movie, has died. Mr. King-Smith died yesterday at his home in southwest England. He was 88. Mr. King-Smith had written more...

"If coal is so good for us hillbillies, then why are we so poor?" Judy Bonds, a West Virginia native who fought her state's most powerful industry, didn't mince words. She was a waitress and a convenience store clerk who found her voice as an activist in her 40s, when...

John P. Wheeler III, a veteran of Washington politics who had worked in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and played a key role in establishing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, has been found dead in a Delaware landfill. His death was ruled a homicide after his body...